


Memory-Resident Virus

by msermesth



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: A.I. Tony, Angst, Hydra Cap, Hydra Steve Rogers, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Secret Empire, sim-Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 07:16:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11435862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msermesth/pseuds/msermesth
Summary: A.I. Tony has a secret weapon in the fight against Hydra. That his Steve Rogers simulation doubles as a friend only makes it more special.





	Memory-Resident Virus

**Author's Note:**

> This is set sometime after Secret Empire: Underground but before Secret Empire #5.
> 
> I got a bunch of things to keep in mind with this one-
> 
> 1\. This is a Hydra Cap story. I think you know if you want to read one of those.  
> 2\. There is probably a really great story about A.I. Tony and A.I. Steve banding together to defeat Hydra Steve and then falling in love and teaching Steve and Tony to fall in love. Someone should write that, I would totally read it. Unfortunately, that’s not this story. This stuff is bleak.  
> 3\. A.I. Tony is kind of a creep in this one. Not that creepy, and he’s certainly not the villain (that would be one cosmic cube reality-warped supreme leader of Hydra Steve Rogers), but he’s still a slight creep.  
> 4\. This is un-betad, so I apologize for any typos. Also, I’m not computer-illiterate, but I’m probably making some mistakes in how I’m exploring how the internal life of an A.I. would work. If you see something really (or only slightly) glaring, please tell me.

“Where are we going to end up this time?  Madripoor, Bagalia? I hear New York is really something right now,” Sam asked in a huff from his seat in the quinjet. Despite being successful, it was clear he still hadn’t forgiven Tony for the Pymtron incident. And of course, they had followed it by visiting the Savage Land, but was that so hard?

Tony just shrugged and removed the faceplate on the retro armor. People seemed to like it when they could see a face, even when it glowed blue. “If you got this far, I have no need to lie to you anymore.” What was he going to do with these people?

Sam rolled his eyes, possibly exaggerating for affect. Tony couldn’t always tell. “What a relief. I feel better already.”

“Hardee-har-har,” Tony grumbled fondly. “You know, we couldn’t do this without you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Show your appreciation by keeping me in the loop next time.”

For a moment Tony tried to find some sarcastic retort to Sam, but it never came. Instead he executed a program he had been working on over the last few days and the image of Steve materialized out of thin air right behind Sam. Even though his face was unreadable, it was a calming presence. “Will do, Captain,” he said, and he meant it to the one in the flesh and blood before him even as he kept his senses locked on the digital one behind.

Sam, for his part, didn’t respond with some comment about how he wasn’t Captain America anymore. Instead he sighed and said, “This all feels like busy work. If he wasn’t dogging all our steps, I’d think he’d just scattered the shards to keep us out of his hair.”

Tony thought about that for a moment and tried to fight the pit of hopelessness he kept flinging himself into. He was fixing this. He was going to fix this, at least. “Yeah, that’d be brilliant. Just the sort of well-thought-out plan that would save the day if he were on our side. But he’s not.”  Steve stayed silent but nodded at Tony to confirm he agreed with his assessment.

The idea of a Steve-based artificial intelligence had come to him as he had been programming the Natasha fight simulation. And if he had enough data to create something to replicate the Black Widow, then he certainly could do the same for Steve. An algorithm had been collecting and synthesizing any sort of information Tony could gather on the man’s personality and decision-making process with the goal of creating a program that could provide them some insight into what the real, evil one was going to do next.

Now, Tony was only keeping him to himself because the program was still in the beta phase. And well, it didn’t need to be projected for the real eye to see, so Tony could process him just as he remembered seeing him. Somehow the Steve-simulation looked more real to Tony’s digital senses than the actual real world.

He was a sight for metaphorical sore eyes.

“Tony?” Sam said, breaking his concentration. Tony tore his focus from Steve’s blank face and looked back at Sam. He must have been distracted, though he knew that should have been impossible. Computers were supposed to be able to divide their attention up perfectly.

“I was just thinking that... I’d do anything, really anything, if it would get him back,” he said, even though he hadn’t really meant to. He just had to say it aloud for some reason.

Sam made a sound that sounded half like agreement and half like resignation. “That doesn’t surprise me. The whole ends-justify-the-means thing is kinda baked into your reputation.” Tony was carefully avoiding looking the Steve-simulation in the eyes because he knew how the real man would feel about that sentiment. Sam, on the other hand, just said it like it was an accepted fact and Tony was secretly thankful that Sam had always been a reasonable guy. It was practically one of his superpowers, probably somewhere on the list after being actual goodness personified and maybe even ranked higher than ‘talks with birds’. Sam pursed his lips and continued, “It’s a shame I can’t use this as an opportunity to shove the two of you into some closet.”

Wait, what? “Woah, I totally lost this conversation,” Tony said while practically choking on his words in surprise. “What the hell?”

Sam smiled, presumably because he had successfully caught Tony, a living computer, off guard. “Misty and I have this theory….” he trailed off, looking like he knew Tony’s curiosity would get the best of him.

He wasn’t wrong. “I have a feeling I really don’t want to know what this theory entails.” Which was a complete and total lie, but it was a lie he had to say in order to save face. Or at least look like he was trying to save face. He tried to shut down sim-Steve’s program so that he wouldn’t have to avoid looking at him any longer.

“We have a theory…” Sam began again, drawing it out with much satisfaction, “that if the two of you hooked up, it would actually save lives. Not just your lives. Civilian lives.”

“And by ‘hook up’, you mean…?”

“Don’t play coy.”

“I’m not! I think you’re messing up your slang and ‘hooking up’ doesn’t mean what you think it does,” Tony said in a huff.

Sam was smiling and it was obnoxious. “I would prefer not to dwell on the details. You know what I’m talking about.”

That didn’t sit very well with Tony. Sim-Steve was still standing there and observing, apparently too stubborn to shut down. This was very dangerous territory. “You should be careful what you insinuate.” It was a stroke of luck that he managed to sound more threatening while digital.

“Funny, that’s what Steve said.” Sam was clearly enjoying this. Tony hated him.

“You told Steve about your little theory?” Tony whispered-shouted. Tony finally gave into the temptation to look and see just how offended the Steve-simulation was, but if his face had changed, it was only to look a little more thoughtful.

“Of course. Friends tell friends when they should have sex for the public good. He wasn’t very happy about it, though.”

“See. It’s not a thing,” Tony concluded. He thought he was doing a good job of masking his disappointment and avoiding actively denying any of the accusations Sam was making at the same time.

“That’s one way of looking at it.” Sam sighed and it seemed like he realized the joke he was trying to tell wasn’t funny anymore.  “I’m going to get some shut eye. Wake me up if you decide to land at the front door of our beloved supreme leader.”

Everyone else on the plane had drifted into sleep. Tony liked this part. Artificial intelligences didn’t need sleep. And while it wasn’t like he couldn’t do multiple things at once, it was nice being able to run whatever processes he needed to without worrying about wasting precious memory being interrupted by people. 

It also meant that he felt less guilty when he finally decided to just let the Steve-simulation keep running in the background. “Don’t want to sleep?” Tony asked. Their conversation was shut off to the rest of the plane, just as Tony liked it.

“I think I’ve had my fill of sleep,” sim-Steve responded. His mouth twitched like he knew the answer was tired and worn out and all the better for it.

Even Tony couldn’t believe how much he missed him. “It’s just like you to never listen to me.” There was probably some error in the code that was making it possible to refuse to follow Tony’s commands, but he could debug the program latter. Right now, it was everything to just have the guy around.

Steve was wearing that brilliant and bright blue new uniform that Tony associated with the updated and cruel version of his friend, however. With a quick code change to the simulation’s programming, his uniform changed to the navy ‘Commander Rogers’ outfit that seemed that have been made just to emphasize the man’s unreal shoulder to hip ratio. But that wasn’t right either. Tony still associated that with a fight between them that was too recent (and would always be too recent) to forget. So, he made another update and Steve was standing there in his scale mail and pirate boots while looking amused that Tony was playing dress-up. If there were bad memories associated with this outfit, it didn’t matter, because Tony didn’t remember them the same way he remembered the others.

“Are you finished?” sim-Steve asked like it had been a minor inconvenience to wait while Tony decided what he was supposed to wear.

“Depends. Was there something else you’d prefer?”

Steve wore the same expression he had when he talked about his shield. “I was always fond of this one. It’s a classic.”

“Kinda like yourself.” Tony took the moment to drink him in. He was so much more real like this than he would be in a picture or a video. “What do you think of my team?” he asked, but before sim-Steve was about to respond, Tony added, “And don’t use any dated baseball metaphors I won’t understand.”

The simulation paused and looked like he was trying to think of something else to say. “It’s a formidable team. You should be proud.” That was such an earnest and Steve answer that Tony didn’t even try to respond and instead let the glow of the compliment wash over him. “You should know, Sam’s right.”

That did the trick of disrupting Tony’s good feelings. “What part?”

“We would have been performing a public service if we were together.” Steve had that voice he saved for his deadpan jokes.

“Don’t I know it.” Tony rolled his eyes.

Steve was looking at him like he still had something to say, but Tony was glad he stayed silent. It was nice to leave some disappointments without confirmation.

Tony didn’t want to talk about this anyway. “Could I ask you a question?”

“I thought that was why I was here.”

“You’d want us to save you, right? If we could. Natasha said... She said you wouldn’t want us to be sentimental about it. You’d rather we just... get it over with.” It was hard to get the words out. Tony was still avoiding processing this possibility.

“ _Are you_ being sentimental?”

“Don’t avoid the question.” The simulation wasn’t supposed to be able to evade commands.

“Oh Tony...” sim-Steve said in a sigh and began to walk to him. That took Tony aback- he had been programmed to just stand still. He didn’t need the means to move. Tony began to scan the code trying to find where the error was hiding. Sim-Steve’s expression was pained when he realized what Tony was looking for. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t make mistakes,” Tony said in explanation.

“You didn’t.” Sim-Steve was sitting right next to him now. Even though it was probably some phantom feeling, Tony could feel the heat radiating off his body. “Or at least, the mistake wasn’t in the programming.” He raised his hand and Tony could actually feel him touching his cheek. It had been the first time he had felt anything since he had woken up without a body.

“What are you doing?”

“I was always humbled by the amount of faith in me you had,” sim-Steve said as he looked into Tony’s eyes and gently stroked the back of his neck.  

Something was very wrong. Now that he was looking at the code, Tony could see it riddled with changes that hadn’t been there before. He tried to fix the errors but they were being tweaked so fast he couldn’t keep up.

Steve leaned forward so that his forehead was resting on Tony’s. “Stop, Tony. You don’t have to be doing that. This is better, can’t you see? We’re better like this. Now, why don’t you tell me how the trip to the Savage Land went.”

And that’s when Tony found the connection sim-Steve was trying to make with the satellite hook-up. Immediately, he tried to delete the program but it had now begun to spread to other parts of Tony’s coding. Without considering the impacts to his own functions, he began to delete those parts, too. It didn’t matter what he lost if he could prevent the team’s location from ending up in the wrong hands.

“Stop it. I mean it.” Sim-Steve’s hand moved to the front of his neck and gripped tightly. Tony wasn’t really choking, but it was hard to tell himself that.

“How?” he managed to get out. He had to know how his benign simulation turned into a virus.

“You didn’t think to strike any of the data points of my behavior from after I was reminded of Hydra’s greatness. You were so intent to capture everything about me. Looks like you succeeded.” Steve’s smile was so familiar but his voice was completely wrong. “Just give me a few more minutes and I’ll be done. And you won’t have to worry about anything anymore. I’ll take care of you, I promise. Let me. I want to.”

Sim-Steve’s renegade programming offered up simultaneous visions of the two of them leading the Avengers, drinking coffee in the mansion’s kitchen, and tumbling down onto a bed he didn’t recognize. The visions were so detailed that it was hard to convince himself that they were the lies and the man coldly choking him was his reality. He had to stop this. He had to go nuclear. He prepared himself to do a system restore to the last time he had made a back-up of himself and took his last moment to compile an error report.

“You always do this, Tony. Always try to solve the world with your brilliance, but-”

Tony never got to hear exactly what Steve was going to say. It only took a second to shut himself down.

He was confused when he rebooted, but as soon as the error report loaded he had to fight the temptation to slip back into that pit of hopelessness that smelled achingly close to scotch. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and all that are very much appreciated.


End file.
